


El Weekend

by MarkWShulkin



Category: El Weekend
Language: Español
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-16
Updated: 2015-01-16
Packaged: 2018-03-07 21:07:32
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 478
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3183197
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MarkWShulkin/pseuds/MarkWShulkin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A move review with commentary about the psychology of marriage.</p>
            </blockquote>





	El Weekend

El WEEKEND

This is a flick for those of us who have had the stamina to weather the joys and disappointments of a long term marriage and who unlike Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz and Snow White realize that all the characters are parts of ourselves. In spite of superb acting and beautiful photography of Paris, I found the first half hard work until I discovered the plot and where the story was going, So, Spoiler Beware, let me share with you what I found.

Nick, a British college philosophy professor and Meg, his school teacher wife, celebrate their 30th wedding anniversary with a weekend in Paris. They are disappointed to find that the hotel they had honeymooned at is now run down and dilapidated. We get to know them as things go from bad to worse and they are headed for divorce. We also meet Nick’s ex student, Morgan, who has a very different solution to the fact that “romantic love” must die before the struggle to achieve “real love” can begin.

Though only in his late 60’s, Nick is feel is feeling old, fat and unlovable by anyone, especially by amazingly attractive Meg, who employs a pursuer-distancer mode to manage her fear that she is boringly unlovable and that life is to coming to an end too soon. She keeps Nick interested by alternately repelling his advances and seducing him. He handles his fears of abandonment by telling himself that undying love and faithfulness to one’s wife is the only way, though we note that he sometimes looks lustfully at young women. Morgan’s is a third alternative. He actually abandoned his first wife and family, starting over again with a younger woman who adores his success and maturity. Problem is that journeys into dreamland are likely to be repetitive.

The abandonment problems start in the first year of life when the symbiosis with mother is interrupted by her temporary unavailability (like she has to go to the bathroom). Baby screaming distress brings back Mom’s attentiveness and fosters grandiose fantasies about being powerful, All this is recorded in brain cells, replayable at future times of “childhood” crisis.

A “second childhood” occurs in adolescence when forced to give up dependency before having the emotional resources to be an adult. Examples are Nick and Meg’s son and Morgan’s son, both addicted unemployable and in love-hate relationships with their parents. (More encompassing was a national adolescence in the open marriage and drug abusing culture of the 60’s..) Morgan’s destructive flight from his wife and son during his mid life crisis is the “third childhood”.

Aging and facing retirement. Nick and Meg resolve their cris[s in what I term the “fourth childhood” though it’s more popularly referred to as the second. I won’t ruin a very novel, interesting, fun and thought provoking film by saying any more about it.


End file.
